Owl Genocide?

The post title is intentionally hyperbolic but Gawker does have the information on the plan to help the Spotted Owl – which is basically killing lots of Barred Owls. What do people think of killing a population of one species to save another?

Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy, their son, Desmond Shearwater, and their indoor cat, B.B. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.

Allowing logging to “reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire” – yeah, I’ll bet that’s what was at the heart of that decision. Humans meddle with the ecosystem and then are stunned when the related species start disappearing. Sometimes our species is so short-sighted and stupid, I can hardly believe it…

As for killing off one species to save another, it may make certain tree-hugging types squeamish but it is sometime necessary. Conservation isn’t all feel good stuff, sometimes hard choices have to be made. I don’t know the particulars of this case though.

Hidden in the article is that the plan is to capture and relocate birds as well as just off them. The tone of the article is inflammatory to me, so it appears that they are down playing the relocation, and up playing the shooting.

But how is this possible? I heard Obama wants to take away all our guns! How will we protect ourselves from owls then?